Helen of Troy
by Demons of Disbelief
Summary: Her mother named her Helen. It means 'bright one' but she finds it refers to her mind. Helen.


To call her beautiful would be an affront.

Her hair was softly-waved, mostly-straight and a utterly unremarkable shade of medium brown. Her nose drew the eyes which saw her face, her almond-shaped dark grey eyes and dark olive skin were only secondary. Her skin was smooth and clear, perhaps from some teenage distraught over her beauty or, more likely, a gift from her mother. Her nails were short and unpainted, her eyes marked by their unusual color rather than any artificial touch, and her lips sweet only in their smile. Her body was lean and straight, not made for dresses and heels, but accented by black hair ties and dark green t-shirts.

She has a mirror to look in every morning. She has a drawer full of makeup, filled with mascara and foundation and eyeliner. She has more lipsticks unopened than many will have in a lifetime. Her closet is boring and made to be functional rather than catch the eye. She wears black shirts and green sweaters and things with holes and unflattering shorts. She answers her door in boy-shorts and sports bras, with hair still half in a hair tie and sleep-messy.

She orders Chinese and pizza and makes salads and chicken, eating them over not-yet-developed technology and weight bars and sits empty packages on the old treadmill in the corner she never uses because she loves the morning air too much to huddle inside even on snowy winter mornings. She buys fish from the market and burns it while digging through parts in ill-labeled boxes and she eats all-but-raw steak before returning to painstakingly searching through endless computer files.

She is not clever with people. She is not kind or understanding or patient. She is rarely merciful. What she is, is devilishly clever and utterly ruthless. It took her three years to carve out a world-wide communications and espionage network from a system of computers built by her own hands in a little apartment. Three years to become known as the foremost expert in computers and information broker within the worldwide community. She was not simply the best person to go to, she was the only person to go to if you wanted consistent, reliable intelligence. Three years. She will be twenty-two this third of December and all the world lies at her fingertips.

She has filled two bedrooms with books. They line the walls, infiltrating every crack and niche she can fit them in. Her computer system is the neatest thing in her life. She leaves dishes in the sink and take-out boxes in the five trash cans purchased for such an occasion and placed against the living room wall for convenience. There is a fork half-hidden in her couch cushions. Her bed is rarely made, just left in a rush of cold air and the rustle of warm clothes and there is a layer of towels beside the shower in her bathroom. Her computer room is unmarred. It is carefully painted and obsessively clean. She has wrapped herself in bold blue and tame green, given her chair a shade of orange that made her breath stutter in her throat when it was only a segment in a color palette in a out-of-way store. She wipes the walls and ceiling with careful care on a daily basis, as much of a habit as her morning run. There is no dust in the thick white carpet made for comfort on bare feet.

She was not beautiful, but she did not need to be behind the screen of a computer with a clever mind and gentle hands to complete her work. She was not a person with soft hair and long fingers, but Troia. A computer with the symbol of the immortal ancient gorgon. A female monster who would only be looked upon by those soon to die.

So he did not call her beautiful. He said intelligent and creative and powerful. Beautiful was left for men who wonder on her face and women who heard robotic monotone on earpieces. They called her beautiful and lovely, seeming to misunderstand completely the point. She woke every morning to an apartment she kept far from human eyes, which had blood stained into the carpet she had hidden under the couch and occasionally had explosives on the coffee table. There was a shelf of guns hidden in the back room and a pistol in her bedside table. She carried tiny explosive in her jewelry and her hair was only brushed when she had hidden blades in it. She did not want to be called beautiful.

She was Helen of Troy.

This time, she would be a warrior and not a prize.


End file.
